So my Ele Shaman will be 85 this weekend, and I obviously want to get in heroics soon, so I'm looking to see what gear I can snag on the AH, and I've found there's not much. Either there's a shortage of it, or too much competition for it, and there's not much in the way of spellpower mail on the AH besides the legs and belt. But, there's another question that needs deciding..

Staff, or Mace/Dagger + Shield?

There's the BOE 359 staff on the AH, and the crafted 359 shield, but there are no BOE 359 1H weapons for an ele shammy. There's only one BOE 346, and it's not optimal due to the crit on it. So I can take the better spellpower and stam of the staff, or the armor and lower spellpower of the mace/shield. There is a 353 spellpower mace and dagger coming in ZA/ZG, so perhaps I should just wait for those?..

But given the lack of BOE gear and my bad luck with drops, it might be a long time before I get in heroics if I don't find some BOE gear to push me into heroics. Perhaps the crafted PVP gear?

Amirya wrote:... because everyone needs a Catagonskin rug.

twinkfist wrote:i feel bad for the Mogu...having to deal with alcoholic bears.

= 242 statsThe staff looks marginally better, despite not being able to enchant for the extra 40 int. So basically the question is how you value the armor and 35 int (regen, spellpower) versus the spirit/mastery?

Remember that Intellect is vastly superior to secondary stats. As in, you're looking at it being more than twice as good as the best bang for your buck secondary (which from what I remember is haste, not hit(spirit) or mastery anyway.

Levantine wrote:Remember that Intellect is vastly superior to secondary stats. As in, you're looking at it being more than twice as good as the best bang for your buck secondary (which from what I remember is haste, not hit(spirit) or mastery anyway.

Levantine wrote:Remember that Intellect is vastly superior to secondary stats. As in, you're looking at it being more than twice as good as the best bang for your buck secondary (which from what I remember is haste, not hit(spirit) or mastery anyway.

Thanks for the pointer, it's good to keep that in mind.

According to EJ and MrRobot, after hitcap, it's int>haste=mastery>crit, and it's been pretty easy to get hitcapped.

After doing some more digging, it looks like my best choice is waiting for ZA/ZG, one of the new BOE's in 4.1, or archeology. There's one of the Arch staffs that are actually BiS pre-raid. Current price for Chelley's staff is 40k+, and I'm not paying that...

Amirya wrote:... because everyone needs a Catagonskin rug.

twinkfist wrote:i feel bad for the Mogu...having to deal with alcoholic bears.

Yeah, since mining is totally in the crapper from the botters, I'm looking at starting up Arch again on my hunter while in LFG, and will be gunning for that staff. The Ring of the Boy Emperor isn't bad either, especially if you are not raiding yet.

Amirya wrote:... because everyone needs a Catagonskin rug.

twinkfist wrote:i feel bad for the Mogu...having to deal with alcoholic bears.